Layla’s POV
At the question, my breath hitched in my chest and I felt a shiver run down my spine as his powerful voice washed over me.
With tears streaming down my face I turned slowly to find Alpha Hector taking in the scene before him with a look of displeasure. His lips were pressed into a white slash, and his eyes were narrowed.
I suppressed a gasp as soon as my gaze fell on him, taking in the sight of him wide-eyed.
He cut a frightful figure in the bloodstained shirt he had on. There was dried blood splatter all over his face, and his hands looked like he’d dipped them into a bucket of red paint.
A moment passed before it dawned on me that none of it came from him. Part of his shirt had been ripped clean through, but the skin underneath remained smooth and unbroken, though I knew from years of seeing him train that his body was a patchwork of scars roped over corded muscle.
He was back from the battle he’d set out for two days prior with some of our pack’s finest, taking care of the rogue problem, and I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that he had won because of his track record. Our Alpha never lost. This was a well-known fact.
His reputation as a fearlessly cold killing machine was one of the reasons our Pack went largely uncontested by other Packs. Werewolves loved to conquer as much as they loved slaughter, but everyone knew their place on the food chain. He was the apex predator, and I fell somewhere at the bottom.
“Don’t let me repeat myself,” he ordered, and beside me I noticed my father’s posture stiffen slightly. But he recovered quickly, stepping away from his wife and daughter towards Hector.
“Alpha, welcome back,” he began in a voice that carried through the clearing. “I’m sure you—”
“Don’t waste my time, Gaius,” Hector said, cutting him off, and I felt a chill go through me at the rumbled command. Inside me, Lea whined, hiding her face in her paws.
“Yes, Alpha,” my father said, dipping his head slightly in a show of respect. He cleared his throat. “This is just a simple matter. I apologize that this undignified scene is the first thing you’re seeing on your return.”
Only a slight tightening of his features let me know that Hector was annoyed by this, and the silence that followed my father’s statement stretched uncomfortably.
Anyone else in dad’s position would’ve been quaking in fear, and I was sure that on a level some part of him had to be, but my father was not only the Beta of the Sanguis Pack. He was also Hector’s loyal friend, and had played an important role in helping him secure his claim as Alpha in a struggle that ended in the slaughter of tens, if not hundreds of wolves.
“Layla.”
The sound of my name rolling off his lips caused my heart to stutter in fear, and for a moment I worried that I had imagined it, but then he called my name again.
I couldn't believe it. In fact, a part of me was surprised that he even remembered my name as I had always considered myself invisible to him. Alpha Hector only spoke to Dad and Reno on the few occasions he came over, and even then he ignored me, though this treatment was also strangely extended to Lu—something I had seen no other man can do, especially when my sister decided to flaunt herself.
The only time I could remember speaking to him was on my eighteenth birthday.
I slowly lifted my head up even though I refused to look him in the eye.
“Look at me,” he ordered, and my gaze snapped to his immediately.
For a moment, I could’ve sworn that I saw some indefinable emotion swirl through the depths of his cold eye, but it was gone before I could pin it down and once more, I chalked it up to my imagination.
“Tell me what happened.”
My breath caught at the instruction, and I could barely believe my ears as my mouth fell open in surprise. The supposed monster was giving me an opportunity to tell my side of the story, helping me when my family had failed to do so, and I was stunned.
I parted my lips to begin, but no sound came out and instead I felt a rush of tears blur my vision and I had to stop to compose myself. Hector gave me an uncharacteristic nod, which I choose to interpret as encouragement, and in a soft voice, I began my story.
“I-it’s not that he left me,” I said haltingly. “I’m leaving Alex because…”
I hadn’t sensed my fiancé creeping through the crowd towards me until the sound of him falling to the ground interrupted my sentence.
Alex scrambled on the earthen floor at my feet, grabbing at my ankles and looking up at me with a downturned mouth, his expression full of regret. I was stunned, and using this opportunity to his advantage, Alex spoke.
“My love,” he said in a voice thick with emotion. “I was shocked to find out about your disability, and I felt blindsided—but I’ve decided that I cannot live without you. I adore you and you alone, and so I will be willing to look over this unfortunate event, and the mating ceremony may go on.”
“As you can see, this is all a huge misunderstanding!” my father boomed, quickly slipping into the confusion that Alex’s declaration had caused. “Layla and Alex will be getting married as planned. Preparations are being made as we speak.”
At these words, I felt a roiling heat in my belly. I had just walked in on my fiancé with my half-sister, had him suggest a threesome, watched him betray a secret that I had trusted him with in front of my Pack, and seen my father throw me under the bus to save his own skin once it became clear that the crowd was siding with Alex—and now that it was all under control he was still insisting that I go through with the mating ceremony? Shut my mouth, sit still and look pretty while the whole Pack applauded Alex for taking pity on me?
How stupid did dad think I was?
“I will NOT marry Alex Rockmountain,” I said, baring my teeth at my father and shaking my head vehemently. Angry tears streamed hot down my cheeks as I spoke. “He is a coward, an opportunist, and a cheater!”
“He is?” Alpha Hector asked through bared teeth.
His face dropped and he shot a dangerous look to Alex, who shrieked under Hector’s stare, quivering like a little mouse. Alpha Hector was no doubt furious, and it was like there was a volcano inside him about to burst.
He took a step towards me, but stopped, closing his eyes like he was trying to get himself under control.
That was when I noticed that like a savior, he had been standing subtly on my side, facing me through the entire interaction.
“He is not,” Dad said, coming to stand on my side and resting a hand on my shoulder. To an outsider it would’ve looked like he was encouraging me, but in reality his fingers dug so painfully into my collarbone that it would’ve snapped if I was human.
“Alpha,” my father continued casually, “Layla’s had a very difficult day. She walked in on a situation and completely misread it as something else. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. The mating ceremony will go on.”
I’d thought that my father wouldn’t be able to disappoint me anymore, but he had and inside me it felt like my heart was shrinking. This was less about me than it was about the fact that my father wanted me married off at any cost so I could finally move out of the house as tradition while also solidifying his position.
I wasn’t a person to him. I was a commodity, and at this realization a feeling of hopelessness threatened to consume me, but I fought it off, ripping my shoulder out of my father’s grasp and looking at the Alpha.
“Alpha, I will never marry Alex Rockmountain,” I said slowly, and just so he knew that I was being dead serious, I added: “I would go rogue first before ever agreeing to a union with him.”
Around us, members of my pack let out horrified gasps at this statement. Beside me my father snarled, and I watched his nostrils flare as he lifted a hand up to strike me.
But I refused to look away, or dodge out of the blow’s way.
If this was going to end with dad hitting me then so be it, and I braced myself for a feeling of pain as his fist came down.
Then out of nowhere, Alpha Hector’s bloodstained hands flew out and took him by the wrist.
